Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Part I: The Rant

Very rarely does a movie’s advertising campaign get it so right by accident.  I don’t know if you’ve seen these particular commercials for what could possibly be the most awaited movie in the history of cinema (of course, I don’t know much about movies before 1977, because they all suck, except for Hitchcock) but the text flashed on the screen in between rapid cuts of the movie is “On May 19, Sith Happens”.  Ha ha, very funny. A play on words. A “pun,” if you will. Fox’s marketing department didn’t know just how right they got it. Episode III is shit, and a very disappointing ending to one of the greatest movie franchises ever.

Now for some full disclosure: I’m a Star Wars Fan (capital “F”). Always have been. Strangely enough, I saw Empire before I saw Star Wars. But then I got to go back and see Star Wars in the theater, because that’s how good it was – they were re-releasing it after the sequel came out. I even had the figures before I ever saw the movie. That was the power of the first Trilogy – little kids were acting out the scenes in the movie without ever having seen it. How amazing is that?  Has any other movie infiltrated the mass consciousness as much and as quickly as Star Wars did? Even movies that are designed to be marketed and are basically 2-hour toy commercials (XXX, I’m talking to you) don’t grab hold of the hearts and minds of the masses like Episode IV: A New Hope did.

So yes, I had all the toys (well, all the toys my parents would buy me – I had to improvise quite a bit with paper and cardboard, but that’s what the toys were all about – using your imagination. So what if my Death Star playset included scenes from Episodes IV and VI. That was cool.) and played with them well past the age I should have stopped. The only thing that got me out of playing with Star Wars toys was G.I. Joe toys. Man, were they cool! They had elbows! And since Lucas had seen fit to abandon us (only for 16 years or so), I turned to the crass jingoism of G.I. Joe vs. Cobra. You gotta admit, though, any army with it’s own ninjas is pretty cool. I’d’ve joined the army if they had ninja training, no doubt.

Anyway, what all this means is that I’m predisposed to liking anything Star Wars-related. Like most males of my generation, I feverishly waited the 17 years for the prequels. I dutifully went to the theater to see the “Special Edition” versions of the original Trilogy (don’t get me started). I read the Star Wars novels, I played the Star Wars video games, I bought the Star Wars posters, I went on the Star Tours ride at Disney World. I slept on the damn Star Wars bedsheets.

Were my expectations set too high? Perhaps for Episode I, yeah. I think when everyone’s been fantasizing about, writing fan fiction about and dreaming about a particular story/universe, it’s going to be very difficult to meet the expectations of millions of rabid fans. When Episode I came along, it was destined to disappoint. Even if it was good. Which it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. I don’t have to go too deep into it, because everyone knows how much it sucked, and why (rhymes with “Darbar”). But, I mean, come on. It’s a sure-fire money maker. All Lucas had to do was some basic background and some good action scenes. At least hire a dialogue writer and a director. Alas, no. Lucas has surrounded himself with people who won’t say “no” to him (and, with the money he brings in, who can blame them, really – that would involve artistic integrity) and there is no filter between George’s brain and the big screen.

So Episode I comes along and resets everyone’s expectations for the prequel trilogy. We figure it’s going to be crap, but at least colorful crap, with explosions and lightsabers. What we weren’t prepared for is the murky, rancid, stinking, vomitorium that is Lucas’ idea of romantic dialog that we got in Episode II. I mean, wasn’t there anyone in all of Lucasfilm who had the guts to say, “George, the fight scene with Yoda rocks, but all this dialog before that has to go. Seriously.”

The whole point of the prequel trilogy is the fall of Anakin Skywalker. For him to fall from being the prophesied “one”  (I dunno, you think Lucas watched The Matrix once or twice? Oh, and what’s with the whole “virgin birth” thing? Did George get religion as well as have kids?) to being the most evilest guy in the galaxy requires a certain amount of emotional depth. A depth that wasn’t necessarily required in the original trilogy, mind you. But with lines like "I don't like the sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating - not like you. You're soft and smooth," causing the audience to wrack with spasms of pain, you just don’t get the kind of attachment to the characters that is necessary to buy the fall from grace.

And then there’s the direction. Look at the cast they got: Ewan MacGregor, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee, etc. Phenomenal actors in other movies. With the possible exception of Liam Neeson, they were uniformly unwatchable. I’m reserving judgement on Hayden Christensen, since I haven’t seen him in anything else yet. Granted, he may get the Mark Hamill curse, and we’ll never see him again outside of a SciFi convention.

OK, two strikes, but Episodes I and II were merely vehicles to get us to the climax of Episode III – the fall of Anakin (and don’t even tell me that a brooding teenager like him would suffer anyone calling him “Annie” without cutting off a major body part). Episode III was supposed to redeem the first two, and tie us into the original trilogy. Well, it certainly tied into Episode IV, nicely, even using some of the same sets, but we’ll get to the question of redemption later. First, there’s the line!

For those of you who have never experienced a Star Wars line, let me sum it up like this: Imagine all the geeky friends you had in high school in a line. Dressed as Darth Vader. Weilding lightsabers. OK, so it’s not that much of a stretch. Especially if you’re like me, and all of your friends were Star Wars geeks.

When the first trilogy came out, I was but a youngster (or “youngling”, as the “new” or “crappy” Lucas would call it) and so I missed out on all the fun of spending weeks in line to see really good movies. So I had to settle for spending hours in line to see really crappy prequels to really good movies. And such I did.

For Episode I, a friend of mine who lives out in the boonies volunteered to stand in line overnight to get tickets two weeks ahead of time for opening day. I gladly took a day off of work and drove two hours out to frick’n Manteca to watch Star Wars with my friends. And I liked it the first time I watched it. Even with Jar Jar, Midichlorians and all, I thoroughly enjoyed my first Episode I experience. Then I watched it again a few days later, and I realized what a Star Wars-withdrawal-induced haze I had been in. Boy did that first movie suck. I mean, come on – Midichlorians? How could Lucas take something so cool and mysterious as the Force, and dissect it into its component particles? Did he actually, for a minute there, think he was writing Science Fiction? No, it’s a Space Opera. Magic is allowed in Space Opera. You don’t have to explain everything like you would on Star Trek.

Aside from nitpicky things like that, the entire story and cast of Episode I was vastly inferior to the original trilogy. The original trilogy had give-and-take between the cornfed goodness of Luke and the battle-worn cynicism of Han. It had good guys with white hats, and bad guys with black hats (well, sometimes the good guys wore black, and the stormtroopers wore white, but you get the idea). It had a vast galactic conflict. What did Episode I have? Trade disputes. Economic sanctions. Senate hearings. Is this Star Wars or C-SPAN?

In many ways, the prequels should never have been made. An old adage for writing is that good stories have no real distinct beginning or end – the characters and histories exist far back into the past and far into the future. But you, as a storyteller need to pick a point at which to start your story, and a point at which to end it. The part in-between those two points should be the most interesting part. The stuff that comes before is backstory, and the stuff that comes after is irrelevant (until the sequel).

Lucas, the 1970’s Lucas, who knew how to tell a story, had the whole thing in his head: The rise of Anakin Skywalker, his descent into Darth Vader, the coming of his children, and the eventual overthrow of the Empire. He wisely chose the second section of this history to be the interesting part: The galaxy is in peril, the Empire is Evil with a capitol ‘E’, and here comes the son of the most Evil guy in the galaxy to save the day. That’s a good story.

Sure, after seeing the first trilogy, we all wanted to see Darth Vader’s rise and fall. But, as much money as it made, artistically, that story did not need to be told. A)It’s a prequel, so everybody knows how it’s going to end up. B) It’s three movies of exposition, without a conflict/resolution story arc. That cripples it, dramatically, from the beginning. Add in the fact that Lucas could never write good dialog, is a terrible actor’s  director, and lost his ability to tell a good story about halfway through Episode VI, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

And don’t get me started on Episodes 7, 8 and 9. Yes, I’ve read some of the books. And no, those movies do not need to be made. Sure, there are some interesting characters they came up with, and a few semi-original plotlines. But once you’ve saved the galaxy and destroyed the Evil Emperor, what’s left? There’s no sequel worth doing. You know what? If you’ve got all these writers chomping at the bit with cool ideas, have them write something original, or another Star Trek novel. There is no compelling reason to make a movie after Palpatine dies. Each new movie just cheapens the originals.

But back to the line. My wife’s friend, Doug, who is he biggest Star Wars geek I know (he’s the one I go to when I don’t remember some bit of arcane trivia) works right across the street from the movie theater in downtown Santa Cruz.

Doug was going to get us a spot in line for the opening day midnight show. He reported around 11am that the line was starting to fill up. He or one of his friends got in line around 3, so they were about half a block from the theater. When we got there around 8, the line went around the corner and down the next block. By the time they let us in, it had wrapped all the way back around the block to the theater. I don’t think this was quite as big as Episode I, but we had much higher expectations then.

Of course there were plenty of people in costume. Now, it’s not that hard to throw on some brown robes, grab a flashlight and call yourself “Obi Wan”, but some of these folks really went above and beyond.

Right behind us in line were Darth Vader and Chewbacca (not really a pair you’d picture together, what with the Imperial enslavement of the Wookiees and everything, but they are two of the better masked costumes from the movies). They were just about perfect: Vader had a nice shiny helmet and shoulder pads, his chest panel had all the requisite switches and blinking lights, and his cape was very swirly and black. Even Chewie looked very authentic and had an excellent Wookiee growl.

The only problem with these costumes was this: both guys were about 5’ 5”, including the boots and helmets. Somehow, seeing a full-size Darth Vader head about two feet below where you expect it is unbearably funny. But they were cool and posed for pictures with anyone who came by.

There were several high-school girls dressed as Padme from Episode II, so that was some nice scenery, but the Boobie award definitely goes to the woman dressed as Slave-girl Leia, from Jedi. It was a dark and rainy night, filled with pimply geeks who had escaped their parents’ basement to stand in line all day and night, and she was out there in just the bronze bikini and red wraps. Very brave of her. But of course she had Vader and Chewie to protect her.

There were also several dozen random people with lightsabers of various build and quality, who would spontaneously start massive Jedi battles every so often. That certainly helped to pass the time. Even though their combat skills were, let’s say, less than adequate.

The other way we passed the time was with trivia. I had brought a stack of Trivial Pursuit: Star Wars Edition cards. Unfortunately, there’s about one question in ten that is actually difficult for a real fan to answer. The rest are along the lines of “What is the name of Han Solo’s ship?”

Some other folks had brought what looked like at least a 25” TV and some sort of game console, and were playing some 4-way games. But they were almost at the front of the line, so I assume they’d been there for twelve hours easy by then.

At around 11:30, the line started surging forward, which probably meant something was happening. After much jostling, we were finally admitted into the theater, to see the final chapter in the Star Wars saga.

Stay tuned for Part 2: The actual movie review.